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Spell Check June 18, 2012

I hate vomit. I know I say this like there is someone out there saying, ” You do? That’s weird, I LOVE vomit.” I know nobody likes it, but there are people who can handle it much better than I can.

My husband is one of those people. He is the puke cleaner in our house. I clean other things but run from puke. The thing is, he always seems to be out-of-town when the “puke” hits the fan. I know that other moms and dads can relate to the fact that the kids always seem to get sick when they are alone. I have a friend that says “It’s in the handbook.” If the dishwasher leaks, AC goes out or the kids get sick, you can bet it’s going to be when your husband (or wife) is out-of-town. Always………ding,dang.

About 2 and half years ago, we had what I refer to as The Stomach Bug of 2010″. It was awful and of course it was during a month that my husband was out-of-town 2 out of the 4 weeks. They weren’t consecutive weeks either. He was gone for one, back for one , gone for another. Recipe for disaster.

The kids were 8 years old, 5 years old, 3 years old and 7 months. The first week my husband, was gone my 5 and 3-year-old sons got it. It was brutal and disgusting. It was non stop puke and poop. We don’t have family here and I would never ask my friends with kids to expose themselves to sickness. So it was all me, all day and all night. I had to take care of them and I was still nursing my 7 month old……..awful.

We survived and my husband came back just as the boys were getting better. For the next week that he was in town, nobody was sick. Then on the Sunday that he left, my oldest came down with the dreaded bug. She was up sick all night. Then my 7 month old started on Monday. The next few days were a sea of dirty sheets and diapers and tears. My tears.

My husband was due back that Friday. On Thursday night, I was downstairs trying to make dinner for the kids who weren’t sick. The baby was in his bouncy seat , fussing because he wanted to nurse and my sick daughter was upstairs in our TV room. I was barely holding it together. I had probably about 15 hours, total, of sleep the whole week and of course, I wasn’t eating. It was bad. So, I was making dinner and my 5-year-old, Cooper, comes down the stairs and said “Mom. Mom. Mom.Mom.” Over and over. Why do they do that? Give me a chance to answer, ding dang! So I answered, testily, “WHAT, Cooper?” He then started to spell something out, YMCA style, with his arms, “V O” then he stopped and started talking to himself , “V O N? No, V O M?” He started the spelling out loud again ” V O M…” I had enough, ” OH, FOR GOD SAKE, WHAT IS IT?!?” He looks at me and says ” Vomit. Caroline vomited all over the floor.” I sighed, and picked up the baby, who by this time, was screaming. I went upstairs with my 3-year-old following me. Sure enough, my daughter had hurled from one end of the room to the other. Not one drop was in the bucket that was by her side IN CASE SHE THREW UP. She is dramatic like that. I dropped to my knees with my baby in my arms (I’m dramatic like that) and just started to cry. My three-year old came up next to me and surveyed the damage. He said ” Mama’s fyin’ (crying),baby’s fyin’ and Fiffy’s (Sissy) fyin’.Oh no.” It was not a great parenting moment for me. The next day my husband came home and lo and behold, everyone made a rapid recovery.

At the dinner table last week we were talking about The Stomach Bug of 2010. My kids and husband were laughing and joking about the whole thing. When I had finished telling the story, Cooper took a bite of food and said, proudly, ” Well, at least now I can spell vomit: V O M E T.” I spit out the food I had just put in my mouth, my husband (almost) spit out his beer and my daughter was laughing so hard she practically fell out of her chair. Ummm, yeah, at least you can spell “Vomet.”

I am right there with you, Claire. I have a major fear of vomit. I always have- I can’t watch other people throw up, I get totally ill if I see it in a movie and even when I feel sick like I’m going to throw up, I start getting really anxious and panicky. I used to worry about this before I even had kids, about how I was going to handle it with them. Kensley only had the bug twice and amazingly, my husband was home both times. But you know dang well I’m in constant fear for the next time, and if he’ll be home!